


Tomorrow

by seventeensteps



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Fever, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5994822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventeensteps/pseuds/seventeensteps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through the haze of the unbearable fever, Tony distantly hears a voice call his name.</p><p>translation into 中文 available: <a href="http://www.movietvslash.com/thread-195235-1-1.html">here</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6210329">here</a> by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/firstgreengold">firstgreengold</a><br/>translation into Tiếng Việt available: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/nguy%E1%BB%85n-kim-ho%C3%A0ng/fic-d%E1%BB%8Bch-ng%C3%A0y-mai-seventeensteps/1019691464783935">here</a> by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinnou/">Kinnou</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kdragonsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kdragonsky/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [明天](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6210329) by [firstgreengold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstgreengold/pseuds/firstgreengold)



> For [kdragonsky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kdragonsky/), you are responsible for dragging me into this.

 

It's been raining cats and dogs, a miserable Sunday afternoon; Tony wishes he could just close his eyes and never wake up – maybe that'd be easier. Through the haze of the unbearable heat, however, he distantly hears a voice call his name.

"Tony. Tony. _Tone_."

Tony rolls away from that menacing voice. The man has to pester him even in his own sleep. How arrogant is that? A rare moment of peace once in a while is all he wants. Is that too much to ask?

“Tone.” A hand touches his forehead and lingers there before disappears. It comes back with a cool wet cloth, rubbing his face and neck with it. He repeats the action for a couple of times. “You’re burning up, Tone. Wake up. Come on, wake up and take your meds, and then you can go right back to sleep I promise. I even made you a bowl of porridge."

His porridge smells good, but waking up seems like too much effort. Tony’s head feels like someone is pounding a cheap chunk of meat in it and he wants it to stop.

"That's exactly why you need to take this, Tone," the man sighs. Dammit fever. "You don't have to eat the whole bowl. Just enough so you're not undernutrition, and then you can have the pills."

That sounds good. But Tony doesn't want to see his face.

"Tony."

He makes Tony feel weak, even weaker than he already is, and Tony doesn't need that. 

"Little Tony."

Adam thinks if he calls him that, Tony will just say yes to anything he says. He's wrong.

Screw him.

Silence.

And then:

" _Please._ "

No. That is not fair. "I hate you," Tony says, before rolling back and squinting up at him, all sharp lines and beautiful blue eyes. He has to look away.

Adam grins, and says, "I know." His arm comes around Tony’s torso and helps him sit up, then piles the pillows together, fluffing them up for him to lean back on. He hates having Adam fussing over him like this, and he hate that he can't just walk out of the room like usual. Tony reaches for the cooling porridge but Adam beats him to it. The man scoops up half a spoon of the gluey food and blows at it for a few seconds, before he puts the spoon in front of his patient’s mouth.

"I can still move my hands and arms. It's just a fever."

"Yes you can, but let me do this?"

Tony blows a puff of air though his nose but eventually opens his mouth, and receives what Adam offers. The look on Adam's face is ridiculous, so he tells him that.

"Maybe I do." He feeds Tony another spoonful of creamy porridge. It's rich and delicious. Then another spoonful.

Then Adam’s mobile phone rings. He sets the bowl down, and takes his phone out. Tony catches a flash of _Helene_ on the screen. Adam mutes the ringing, not accepting her call. “After you get better, maybe we can watch a movie together.”

Tony nods, and lifts his head up when he glimpses a spoon hanging in the air in front of him. He looks at the spoon, and risks a glance up at the other’s eyes. He shouldn’t have.

Tony hates his eyes. The Tony reflecting in those eyes seems so- …loved, and it only serves to make him think more about Adam and Helene. He feels like falling from the top of a skyscraper and he feels like something cracks. Maybe it's the wall he’s been trying to construct.

Shit.

Get a grip. He can't- he can’t break again. "I think- I think I can eat on my own now."

Maybe it's the way he says it, or maybe it's the way he looks while he says it, but Adam eventually hands the bowl to him without saying anything. At least this way Tony has something to do with his hands.

Tony feels a bit numb. Eating another spoonful, something occurs to him. "Don't you have a date with Helene today?" _God._ Because of the fever, today his brain can't quite catch up with his mouth. It's out there before he can think anything through.

"I had."

Well. "What happened?"

"You're sick. I popped into the restaurant for a bit and didn't see you there, and it's not your day off. So I asked Kaitlin."

"I assume that’s how you got the key to my room."

"She didn't want to give it to me."

"I know she didn't." Tony sets the bowl down onto the nightstand and glances up at him. "You don't have to come here, Adam. It's just a fever. It'll pass soon enough. There's still some time left for that date if you hurry. I'm fine."

He frowns. "Tony. You're important to me, too."

Shit. He can't say that. "No," Tony shakes his head, and Adam doesn't understand what he’s saying no to.

"Tone," and suddenly a hand grabs his wrist, squeezing it a little. "Tone, look at me. You are important to me. I lo-"

"Don't! You-" His throat closes up and he has to swallow a couple of times before he’s able to add, "You don't mean it like that. So don't-." The hand is still holding his wrist, and the stupid tears are pricking his eyes.

The carefully constructed wall is crumbling, crumbling down.

His lips open a little and Tony thinks of the time he told Adam those two gentlemen weren't the Michelin Men, and Tony feels the deep void inside of him. He shouldn't feed it, because no matter what, it's not going to be enough. It eats him up from within, getting bigger and bigger. The emptiness is so vast and consuming, its pull so strong he wants to just give up and let go. Tony is floating and drowning, simultaneously.

A finger comes up and wipes away the liquid that gathers there, but that only makes it flow more freely. His hand pauses, then slides to the back of Tony’s head and his heart skips a beat. Adam pushes his head onto his shoulder, the other hand comes up, and together they hug him tightly, and Tony hates that the void is getting bigger. He hates how Adam touches him. He hates that it makes him feel really important. He hates that that's not enough.

"I'm sorry."

" _Tone_."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too. I don't know what you saw in that addict all those years ago."

Tony is also an addict, one that will never be sober.

"Adam," his muffled voice calls into Adam’s shoulder.

"Hmm?"

"Tomorrow," Tony says.

Adam doesn’t ask where the rest of that sentence is. He just holds him, until and long after the shirt is dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Tomorrow I'll be your Tony._

_I’m sorry that today I can't._


End file.
